Leadership Defined
Many people want to be leaders or claim that they are leaders. However, do they truly understand what leadership is? As a child you most likely played or are aware of the game “Follow the Leader”. In those happy days, leadership was so easy, natural, something that came to fruition by the sheer fact that you or another peer were in front. Everybody followed because they did not want to be outdone or because it was just…. fun. Elaborate philosophies, strategic theories and organizational placement played very little in the choice of the leader. Bobby it’s your turn, Jessica it’s your turn, Emanuel have a crack at it. For the most part, it was simple as that. Every now and then the group would have a dispute, but the game would quickly evolve back to order and the beat would go on.
Fast forward to an adolescent and then to adulthood; and into the corporate arenas, political landscapes, and societal commonplace of what we like to call the real world. What defines leadership here? Is it your position at work, government, your economic status or some other superficial attribute? I believe that Leadership is simply the ability to get others to follow and to follow passionately. Getting people to buy into your ideals and become stakeholders (take ownership) of those ideals, That is leadership.
Now weather leadership is positive, negative or effective is a topic by itself. If we firmly define what leadership is, most organizations and self-described leaders would not have problems with “Leadership”.
So I ask you, what is your definition of “Leadership”?
~Andy
Remember to keep it GC!
Leadership is getting your people or followers to buy into your vision and make it there own. I believe that leaders have special talents and gifts. As we grow and put our instincts with the learned material we learn how to apply it.
I agree, I think that being a good leader is preceeded by being a great follower as well. You must first know how to support the leader before you can become an effective leader… There are natural born leaders who first figured out, by watching others, how to make people want to follow them. The best thing about leading is that you can be a natural born or learned leader and provide the same service/effect on others.
Follow the leader! Great video